Appodeal, the programmatic mediation solution for mobile apps, just announced that it has raised $3.1m in funding from the app community, including mobile app publishers Ximad, Lametina Holdings and Lucky Star Games. The company plans to use the investment to grow its ad marketplace that lets networks bid for inventory in real-time.

The platform originally launched as an internal product to boost efficiency and revenue across Appodeal’s own apps. Now, it connects to major ad networks including Google Admob, Mopub and Inmobi as well as exchanges, DSPs and developers.

“We believe that the mobile ad industry is unfairly built in favour of advertisers. Our mission is to bring the power back to mobile app publishers. We have established a marketplace where ad networks compete in real-time against each other for your ad inventory. Publishers increase revenue with our programmatic ad mediation solution, which engages ad networks in auction-based competition for every ad impression.“

Joining Appodeal is simple. Publishers integrate their SDK and immediately have access to automated mediation, optimisation and monetisation solutions. Being a programmatic exchange means that price per impression is negotiated with the demand sources, including RTB and non-RTB marketplaces. Whilst traditional ad networks require clients to manage multiple ad networks themselves, Appodeal minimises the human factor in its monetisation strategy to improve publisher ad inventory. Advertisers buy traffic directly from Appodeal and revenue goes to publishers at zero mediation fees or commissions.

The company supports creative ad formats from video to native ad solutions to place messaging in context of content. It further provides demographic and behavioural data to enrich user data for publishers, resulting in better engagement and ROI.